Sweden vacation - Jun 23 (day 11) - part 2

Here's the follow-up to the previous post about vacation day 11:

So, after the amusement park/zoo, and a good meal, we headed north on the island to visit some castles.  The first one we visited was Solliden, which is the summer "retreat" of the royal family of Sweden.

This looked a bit archaic

And so did this, but I assume that sometimes they have livestock grazing, and this is to keep them out of the property

These are actually the king's guard dogs...very nice looking!

 

And this is their summer "retreat"

I'm guessing that this might be a groundskeeper's home or something.  I took a photo because I LOVE the green roof!

The palace had a lovely Italian garden off to the side

Here's farmor helping Gwen climb on one of the lions

That was all fine and whatnot, but what I REALLY wanted to see came next.  I have, for as long as I can remember, been fascinated with medieval times....knights, castles, and what not.  And this was the closest thing that I've seen that would've fit in that period.  This is Borgholms Slott.  It is, in my opinion, absolutely breathtaking.

If you click on this photo below you should be able to read it a little bit better, but it gives some of the history.  I don't have a good translated website to point you to, but google translater works pretty well on the one I linked to for more info.

This is a great depiction of the castle ruins.  It's difficult to get a feel for the size of the ruins without this.

That's Joacim and Izzy walking through the initial tunnel of the main entrance.

Look how THICK the walls are!  This was probably used as a lookout.

It nearly took my breath away when I walked in to this courtyard.  From the outside, you've no idea it's there, but when you see it, it's AMAZING!  I soooo wonder what it was like back then...I've got all of these glorified visions in my head (probably put in there from books I've read), but I'm guessing it was much less opulent than I'm imagining.  What is so cool about this place is that it's still in use.  They hold concerts here in the castle ruins....there's a HUGE concert during midsummer...we just missed it!  But I swear, I'll be back here someday to see it...

I swear that I did nothing with these skies...they were truly THAT blue

This was the main "furnace", and is still in use today I think

They still have special dinners in this hall.  There were a few pictures of it all set up, but I didn't get a chance to take photos of those.

This was the maiden's well, which was 35m deep (I think), where they would get water

This was the "kitchen" area

And this is where they would cook meat

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I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this place.  I could've stayed for hours here, but it was starting to get late, and we had a bit of a drive.  I will most definitely come back here.